


Where the Light Won't Find You

by FaiaHae



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Archaeology, F/F, Fictional Religion & Theology, Tomb Raider AU, but kind of more like The Mummy but not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-06 09:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16829359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaiaHae/pseuds/FaiaHae
Summary: Glimmer goes into the desert in search of a couple of dead goddesses, and finds way more then she bargained for.





	1. Chapter 1

The desert  _ really sucked. _

Glimmer had thought she was prepared for the heat of the sub-sahara: she’d done lots of preliminary work around Greece and down to Cairo, and sure, she hadn’t spent much time outside in Cairo, but she’d been working outdoors for most of her life and had done a couple of mapping expeditions in the Mojave trying to trace the routes the original Spanish explorers had gone from Mexico into the United States. She and Bow had done just fine with the American heat, and they’d gone to college in Santa Fe together, so  _ surely  _ they could handle anything Egypt had to throw at them. 

Well, Glimmer wasn’t sure how Bow was holding up, since he was his usual unflappable self, but she was  _ not  _ handling this well.

“How much  _ fuuurrttthherrrrr- _ ”

  
“Glimmer. Glimmer, you have the map.”

Glimmer groaned, but unrolled the map. She really should have waited for the main force of the expedition to arrive, but their flights had been held up leaving the states (since it was winter there, urgh, hemispheres) and she and Bow had been in Greece finishing up the last of the map work and  _ honestly _ , no matter what her boss said, she just needed to scout it out. There were three potential sites, and one of them really wasn’t  _ that  _ far out into the desert. 

Okay, so it was pretty far out into the desert, and their guide had bailed out several miles back on the grounds of some ancient curse blah blah blah. It was actually kind of interesting. The guide had stated clearly  _ these are not my gods  _ and then turned the camel around. Glimmer had been getting ready to tell him of  _ course  _ they aren’t your Gods, that’s why we’re here, following an old legend from  _ Greece _ , but apparently he hadn’t cared enough to stick around. 

They’d found the tip of a boundary obelisk around where he’d run off, which was  _ very _ interesting. Glimmer figured he must have seen it, but Bow was certain the dune blocked it off. Whatever. Lower odds of grave robbers. 

Glimmer drummed her fingers on her bag as she looked at the map, not really focusing on it. They were better off looking for the other boundary stones. At least they’d confirmed the general area. She was sweating, and as much as she’d prefer to go back to Cairo, their guide was probably long gone. She could use a camp set up. She flipped open her bag.

“You know I just wonder why this stone was with the scroll? It doesn’t seem like it should be a key-”

Glimmer pulled the stone free from her bag, and then several things happened at once. 

The first, and the one Glimmer was most aware of, was that the stone in her hand went up like a flare. She swore, nearly dropping it, and felt Bow’s hands close around it, and her, as the second thing happened.

The ground gave out. 

She didn’t feel anything  _ move _ , no grind of a stone panel releasing, just what must have been a thousand years worth of sand all drop at once. Bow shouted something she didn’t quite hear, but he pulled her scarf up over her mouth and then-

And then things went black. 

Deep under the ground, and burned into Glimmer’s retinas, a third thing happened. 

A path to a prison cell opened, at last. 

__

Glimmer woke up to Bow’s voice. He was yelling. Why was he- he never sounded this upset-

She blinked. Sand caught in her eyelashes, and she flinched and tried to blink it away. She pulled the fabric away from her mouth and sat up, displacing the sand around her. 

Ah, that’s right. Temple. Greek Temple. In Egypt, for some reason. She squinted up, thanking her lucky stars that her leg bones were intact, because that seemed like a rather considerable drop. Funny that- 

She tried to stand, and then her leg corrected her assumption. 

“Oh FUCK, Glimmer. Oh fuck.”

He caught her as she keeled over, and she squinted up at him, still trying to get the sand out of her eyes.

“How are you fine?”

Bow’s eyebrows pulled together.

“I....rolled? I don’t know why you didn’t roll!”

“I....” Glimmer blinked. An image, burned into her eyes. Every time she blinked it faded a bit, but it was there.

“I know how to get to the middle of the temple! We need to-” she tried to step, jarring her leg and making her let out a little shriek of pain. Bow picked her up.

“Okay, no more of  _ that _ . And uh, i’m glad but- don’t you think we should focus on getting out of the temple? That we’ve apparently fallen into?” 

Glimmer felt...a bit out of it would be an understatement. She was pretty sure she was riding the shock like a surfboard. But something was tugging at her- tugging her towards the head of the chamber they’d fallen into. 

The....

  
  


Holy shit.

They’d fallen into a central chamber, with no sign of the roof that had once been above them. The light cascading down lit the sand like crystals, and the light cast around on the walls, which were painted in colors that couldn’t  _ possibly  _ be so bright after so much time. The head of the expedition was going to  _ kill them _ for exposing all this to the air, and Glimmer half expected the paint to oxidize and flake off as they looked at it.

Only...that wasn’t paint, was it?

“Bow, is that-”

“Lapis? And gold? And quartz? Yes. yes it is. I’m gonna cry.”

There were murals on the walls, made of precious and semi-precious stones, and so many images that they made Glimmer’s head spin to look at them. A woman in gold and white, marble and gold, with the sun a shining beacon of gold behind her. On the opposite wall, a woman in black with a panther’s ears and twisted braids, the moon a white shield behind her. There were more images, but Glimmer’s head began to swim, and she gritted her teeth. 

“Bow, we should check for structural damage. Down that hallway. Behind the big archway.”

Bow shot her a suspicious look. 

“You just wanna see what’s buried down here.”

“Of  _ course _ I do. So let’s go, please!! I would be down that hallway already if I hadn’t forgotten how to roll when falling, apparently.”

Bow sighed dramatically, but he was just as excited as she was- duh, they were on this expedition together- and started down the hall.

“I think we might be stuck down here until the team comes, honestly. But i don’t see any cracks so-”

Bow kept talking, but Glimmer tuned him out as she tried to take on the inscriptions on the walls. The images were telling a story, but it didn’t seem a....positive one. The panther woman crouching to whisper something in the ear of a woman the height of her knee. The woman holding out a staff, pointing it into the sky and calling up a storm. The golden woman, holding out a shield and standing between the panther woman and an army, and then the setting sun behind the woman as she fell, casting her sword from her hand, reaching out towards the other woman as she was pulled away-

“-don’t think this is a tomb”

Bow’s voice was hushed, but he wasn’t looking at the walls. He was looking at the chamber at the end of the hall.

Glimmer twisted her head to look.

In the middle of the room, a sword was planted in the ground, radiating lines of gold set into the ground in complex patterns.

At the far end of the room was a statue- about 8 feet tall, hands forward and empty. 

If it hadn’t been for how planted the sword looked in the ground, Glimmer would have assumed someone had pulled it from the statue’s hands.

“...Glimmer, the stone.”

“Hm?”

Bow nodded towards the sword.

“I grabbed the stone, it’s in my bag. I think it goes in the hilt of the sword.”

Glimmer looked at the sword.

It was shining- couldn’t have been made of steel, this temple didn’t seem airtight, and it’s blade shone. And sure enough, in the handle, there was an empty socket the size of the stone.

“...Bow, I think you’re gonna have to put me down.”

Bow groaned.

“But that’s gonna hurt you-”

“It’ll be fine! Just set me by the door, you need to make sure you step carefully and have a free hand to put the stone in.”

Bow grumbled a bit more, but he complied, setting Glimmer down as carefully as he could and turning back to the door. He stepped carefully, but there was no sign from the ground that it was anything but a solid slab of stone.

He slipped the stone into the sword and something clicked.

They both held their breaths.

Nothing.

Bow let his out in a sigh.

“Alright. So the sword goes in her hand, clearly. I wonder if there’s any more to the temple.”

He pulled the sword loose and crossed the room, and Glimmer saw a panel in the center of the room sink.

“Uh- Bow-”

“Yeah?”

A massive panel slid from the ceiling and sealed the door- falling into place too fast to even think about stopping it. The walls shook.

“Bow, put the sword in her hand-”

“On it on it on it-”

Bow shoved the sword into the statues hands and-

And the shaking stopped, but they forgot all about it, because the  _ statue started to move. _

“Oh.”

The word was hardly a sound at all, because it stuck in Glimmer’s throat as she woman stepped off of the dais, turning the sword in her hands, emitting light like a nova around her. She lifted her head, and she wasn’t marble anymore, her hair was like spun gold, god glimmer, now is Not the Time To be Gay-

“Who are you?”

Bow took a step back, but his good nature won out, as it always did.

  
“Um. I’m Bow! The girl with the broken leg by the door is Glimmer-”

  
“Bow!” Glimmer hissed. Really, they didn’t need to be advertising her injuries-

“-and uh. We really didn’t mean to disturb you so if you need us to be on your way- uh- we really can’t get that door open-”

“Your friend is injured?”

The glow was dissipating, but the woman’s eyes were still an inhuman shade of crystal blue. She held the sword loosely, and Glimmer found- to her surprise- that she wasn’t afraid. There was a kind of warmth in her presence. Bow seemed to feel the same, because he gathered himself and bowed.

“Yes. We fell into your temple-”

“This is no temple.” the woman walked past bow, a toga falling loose around her shoulders and running along the ground as she crossed to Glimmer. 

She put her hands on Glimmer’s leg, and Glimmer flinched, expecting the raw pain she’d been feeling earlier. Instead, warmth bled out from the woman’s hands that had nothing in common with the desert heat. The air felt cold around them in contrast. Glimmer felt short of breath as the woman’s head tipped back, her golden hair twisted through a tiara and those blue eyes and  _ holy shit Glimmer now is Not the Time to Be Gay- _

“-um. If it’s not a temple then-”

“It is a prison.”

The woman lifted her hands, and Glimmer had to hold their warmth in her mind to stop the little chill of fear down her spine  _ what had they done oh god the movies always said you shouldn’t let out the spirits trapped in fucking tombs the mummy was right all along- _

“Oh that’s- um. Who imprisoned you?”

Ah, Bow. Bless him. Right to the point. 

“I....”

  
She swayed, planting the sword on the ground and leaning on it.

“I don’t recall. Something is....missing. I- Catra!” She shot up, looking around the room desperately.

  
“Catra!”

“There’s no one here but us.” Bow approached her, placing a hand gently on her arm.

“Catra...the goddess of the moon? And you’re She-ra, right?”

For a second Glimmer was thrown for a loop. How did bow-?

And then she remembered.

Oh god.

The cult.

  
The cult they’d been here researching.

  
The goddesses thrown out of Greece and cast down into the desert after they’d fallen from favor.

Oh god.

  
Oh god, they were  _ real.  _

  
She-ra was standing before them, in the flesh, calling out for her lover Catra, and she was  _ Gorgeous  _ and Glimmer was so  _ Fucked. _


	2. Run

She-ra held out her hand to Glimmer, who took it without a second thought. She was pulled to her feet, dazed, and heard Bow make a noise but-

Her leg.

She looked down.

Her leg was....fine? It was just...fine.

She remembered the warmth of the woman’s hands.

“Oh. Okay. That’s a thing.” Bow’s voice was several octaves higher then she’d heard it in years.    
  
“That’s fine. That’s great. Um. How do we get out of here? I’m sorry but we fell and-”

She-ra released Glimmer’s hand, and it felt like a profound loss (dammit)

She turned to look at Bow.

“If you will allow me, I can carry you up. I know it is a jump.”

“Ah..that’s nice but I meant the-”

She-ra seemed to notice the door for the first time. She sheathed the sword at her waist, crossed to the door and bent, and Bow made a questioning noise that didn’t quite turn into a sentence before the woman  _ deadlifted the solid marble door back up. _

They stood in stunned silence for a moment as She-ra tossed the door up and caught it experimentally, as though trying to find a latch. Bow whispered- as though to himself-

“Do you ever think you might not be gay?”

“No.” Glimmer whispered back, and he nodded.

“It may not remain up, go ahead and I will let it down behind us.” She-ra announced, not seeming to notice their conversation. 

Her 8-ft height and the extra two of lift gave them plenty of room to walk under the door before She-ra let it drop with a resounding crash that shook the whole temple. The marble cracked.

The goddess just kept walking, tapping her fingers in a rhythm against the hilt of her sword as though deep in thought. She stopped short, turning to the wall.

  
“Is this my story?”

“We believe so.” Bow chimed in, after noticing Glimmer choking on her own tongue.

“Some details don’t match the legend we found recorded. This makes it seem as though you were forced apart from Catra while fighting, but the written record says you surrendered to protect her.”

Bow elbowed Glimmer, who was studying the exact curvature of She-ra’s bicep. 

“Ah- yes- and the record seems unclear about exactly it was that Catra did to bring down the wrath of the other gods-”

“Not all of them.” 

The wall cracked, and Glimmer flinched, before noticing the spiderweb of breaks was in an aura around She-Ra’s fist.

“We were...” She drew her hand away, looking guilty.

“Ah, sorry. I think that’s....you must be here to study these I shouldn’t be....”

“It’s alright. There are a couple more sites and....”  _ and you’re a much better find.  _ Glimmer bit her tongue. PROBABLY couldn’t tell anyone they’d awoken a banished goddess. All the books said that was a bad idea. 

She-ra turned back.

“There are other sites? Where? Do you know where I could find Catra?”

“Ah- We might.”

“That’s-”

Something shifted imperceptibly in the shadows, just in the corner of Glimmer’s eye, and She-ra stiffened.

“Are you armed?”

“Ah- no?”

The room seemed to be getting darker, and She-ra’s shoulders relaxed. She straightened.

“We are going to need to run.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the cliffhanger! I'm having a tad of writers block, so I had to get to a stopping bit. I should update soon!


End file.
